Voice of India Books
Voice of India is a publishing house based in New Delhi, India, that specialises in books about current affairs, socio-cultural and political issues, and challenges before India and its people from the perspective of Hindu Culture, society and Hindu revivalism. It was founded by Sita Ram Goel in 1983 and joined by Ram Swarup. History Sita Ram Goel's motive and objective in his own words behind founding the publishing house is to equip Hindu society with the information, knowledge and perspective needed to fight and counter the ideological, cultural, political, psychological and physical aggressions upon it by ideological and political forces that have been inimical and predatory towards it from the beginning, namely radical Islam, evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity, and Communism/Marxism. It is notable for English language books by eminent journalists, historians, social commentators and academicians such as Arun Shourie, David Frawley, Shrikant Talageri, Francois Gautier, Harsh Narain, Subhash Kak, Koenraad Elst, and N. S. Rajaram. According to Pirbhai, Voice of India was established to provide the Sangh Parivar ‘a Hindu ideology of its own rather than live on borrowed slogans.M. REZA PIRBHAI (2008). DEMONS IN HINDUTVA: WRITING A THEOLOGY FOR HINDU NATIONALISM. Modern Intellectual History, 5, pp 29. He also remarks that the most repeated statement in Voice of India writings seems to be that ‘the problem is not Muslims but Islam’.” M. REZA PIRBHAI (2008). DEMONS IN HINDUTVA: WRITING A THEOLOGY FOR HINDU NATIONALISM. Modern Intellectual History, 5, pp 45-46. According to Heuze, the Voice of India authors draw their inspiration from democratic texts, European thought and secular and democratic polemicists to justify their anti-Islamic "crusade", and they distance themselves from everything that could be perceived as extreme-right. David Frawley finds nothing irrational in their publications. "Their criticisms of Islam were on par with the criticisms of the Catholic Church and of Christianity done by such Western thinkers as Voltaire or Thomas Jefferson."David FrawleyHow I became a Hindu: My discovery of Vedic Dharma Koenraad Elst stated that it is "remarkable that all the writers who have published contributions to Hindu thought in the Voice of India series, are not members of any RSS front".Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991) Footnote 311 Arun Shourie praised the work of Voice of India's authors, stating: : "One final reason for being confident is that because of the work of Ram Swarup, Sitaram Goel, Koenraad Elst, David Frawley, and Rajiv Malhotra the corpus is now reaching a critical mass. So, that we can think that within few years we will have a library for India and a library of India." The magazine Hinduism Today has for many years honored the views of Ram Swarup in a number of its articles and publications, as it has also honored the views of Sita Ram Goel and the work of VOI. Partial list of publications * Goel, Sita Ram ** History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1989) ** Defence of Hindu society (1994) ISBN 978-8185990248. ** Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them (1991). ** Catholic Ashrams: Sannyasins or Swindlers? (1995). ** How I Became A Hindu (1998) ISBN 978-8185990057. ** India's Secularism (2000) ISBN 978-8185990590. * Elst, Koenraad on Ayodhya dispute ** Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991). ** Ram Janmabhoomi vs. Babri Masjid. A Case Study in Hindu-Muslim Conflict (1993). ** Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002) ISBN 81-85990-75-1. ** Ayodhya, The Finale - Science versus Secularism in the Excavations Debate (2003) ISBN 81-85990-77-8. * Elst, Koenraad on other topics ** Gandhi and Godse - A review and a critique (2001) ISBN 81-85990-71-9. ** Hindu Resurgence (1997) ISBN 81-85990-47-6. ** Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar (1993). ** Psychology of Prophetism - A Secular Look at the Bible (1993) ISBN 81-85990-00-X. ** The Saffron Swastika - The Notion of Hindu Fascism. (2001) ISBN 81-85990-69-7. ** Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate ISBN 8186471774. ** Who is a Hindu? (2001). * Reprints ** Vindicated by time: The Niyogi Committee report on Christian missionary activities.''Madhya Pradesh (India)., Goel, S. R., Niyogi, M. B., & Voice of India. (1998). ** ''The dead hand of Islam by Colin Maine (1979) ** The Bible : what it says ''by Colin Maine (1985). New Delhi: Voice of India. ** ''In the path of God : Islam and political power by Daniel Pipes ** The Rushdie affair : the novel, the Ayatollah, and the West by Daniel Pipes; Foreign Policy Research Institute. ** The Goa Inquisition : being a quatercentenary commemoration study of the inquisition in India by Anant Priolkar; Gabriel Dellon; Claudius Buchanan ** Woman, church and state : a historical account of the status of woman through the Christian ages, with reminiscences of the matriarchate by Matilda Joslyn Gage ** Mohammed and the rise of Islam ''by David Samuel Margoliouth ** ''The life of Mahomet : from original sources ''by William Muir, Sir ** ''Malabar and the Portuguese ''by K. M. Panikkar ** ''Inner Yoga by Anirvan * Compilations ** Freedom of expression : secular theocracy versus liberal democracy (1998). New Delhi: Voice of India. ** Time for stock taking, whither Sangh Parivar? (1997). New Delhi: Voice of India. ** India's only communalist : in commemoration of Sita Ram Goel (2005). New Delhi: Voice of India. ** History versus casuistry : evidence of the Ramajanmabhoomi Mandir presented by the Vishva Hindu Parishad to the Government of India in December January 1990-91. New Delhi: Voice of India. ** Tipu Sultan : villain or hero? : an anthology. (1993). New Delhi: Voice of India. * Translations ** Un regard Hindou sur le Christianisme et l'Islam by Ram Swarup. New Delhi: Voice of India. ** A Muslim missionary in mediaeval Kashmir '': being the English translation of Tohfatu'l-ahbab. Translated by K N Pandit. New Delhi: Voice of India. Quotes * While Voice of India had a controversial reputation, I found nothing irrational, much less extreme about their ideas or publications... Their criticisms of Islam were on par with the criticisms of the Catholic Church and of Christianity done by such Western thinkers as Voltaire or Thomas Jefferson. In fact they went far beyond such mere rational or historical criticisms of other religions and brought in a profound spiritual and yogic view as well. ** David Frawley, How I became a Hindu: My discovery of Vedic Dharma. * Ram Swarup is one of those rare souls whose vision exceeds that of those around them, whose mind is so clear it can bring clarity to others. For us, the editorial staff at Hinduism Today, his writings were a treat - always bold, incisive, unapologetic, targeting strategic issues with uncanny precision. Our personal meetings with him and with his friend and student Sita Ram Goel were always a delight. His passionate intellect was incandescent and it was working in service to his deeper spirituality. If we could but hear him and heed him, our future would be as strong as our past. ** Paramacharya Palaniswami, : Editor-in-Chief shows how many Hindus honor Ram Swarup and Sitaram Goel and their work. * One wonders too at the relevance of his next rather irrational comment: “Ironically, many of those expressing these anti-migrational views are emigrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N S Rajaram, S Kak and S Kalyanaramam, who ship their ideas to India from US shores”. What indeed has this absurd statement to do with facts and evidence?… Then, it continues in the same tone of irrelevance and contempt, forgetting how many Universities and Journals spend enormous funds on useless hypotheses and ostracise all non-immigrationists: “They find allies in a broader assortment of home-grown nationalists including university professors, bank employees, and politicians (S. S. Misra, S. Talageri, K. D. Sethna, S. P. Gupta, Bh. Singh, M. Shendge, Bh. Gidwani, P. Chaudhuri, A. Shourie, S. R. Goel). They have even gained a small but vocal following in the West among "New Age" writers or researchers outside mainstream scholarship, including D. Frawley, G. Feuerstein, K. Klostermaier, and K. Elst. Whole publishing firms, such as the Voice of India and Aditya Prakashan, are devoted to propagating their ideas”. Here two further points are worthy of note: first, Prof Witzel obviously does not know what “New Age” writers are; second, the whole passage has the shrill tones of McCarthyism or any totalitarian dogmatism (and censorship). Instead of emitting such strident emotional cries and witch-hunt slogans, Prof Witzel and his followers had better re-examine their unfounded linguistic assumptions and recall the words of Edmund Leach, who was neither an Indian nationalist technocrat, nor a New-Age writer, but a solid, mainstream pillar of the academic establishment ** Nicholas Kazanas, The RV Date - a Postscript': The Greek Indologist Nicholas Kazanas, in a reply to Prof. Michael Witzel's criticism on Voice of India. * One final reason for being confident is that because of the work of Ram Swarup, Sita Ram Goel, Koenraad Elst, David Frawley, and Rajiv Malhotra the corpus is now reaching a critical mass. So, that we can think that within few years we will have a library for India and a library of India. ** Arun Shourie ; . * The members of Voice of India themselves are inspired only by 'democratic' texts when they invoke contemporary European thought to justify their anti--Islamic 'crusade', and they deliberately leave out anything that could be perceived as extreme right. **Heuze, Gerard (1993). Où va l'inde moderne?. Harmattan. ISBN 2738417558. p 123-124 References '''Sources' * Hock, H.H. 1999. Through a glass darkly: modern “racial” interpretations. In J. Bronkhorst and M.M. Deshpande (eds), Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia – Evidence, Interpretation and Ideology, pp. 145–74. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora, Vol. 3, Harvard University.University. * Further reading * External links * List of publications of Voice of India at Aditya Prakashan